2014 Touareg - cold weather victim

KITEWAGON

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Location
Seacoast, NH
TDI
2014 Touareg Exec, 2014 JSW
I got a call from my wife today about 3 miles from home. 2014 Touareg was losing power, bucking and finally died as she was trying to get off the road. Flashing glow plug light. It was about 5 F outside at the time.

Was able to start again and get it off the road. Fuel had Standyne additive. I dumped in some more Optilube winter when I got to it. It started up and idled okay and I drove it home very slowly keeping RPM's below 1500. When running I heard a fairly high pitched whine that sounded like it was coming from under the car. I was guessing maybe the lift pump at the tank. But who knows, its hard to pinpoint noises like this and I didn't want to keep it running any longer than necessary to try to pinpoint it.

The car had about 1/2 tank and we've driven it on this fuel at temps colder than what we had this morning in the past week.

This car has the fix and the extended warranty thank goodness. The fix was withing the last 1000 miles. It has 126k on it right now. I am using the VW goodwill roadside assistance to have it towed to the dealer. I assume that best case scenario is gelled fuel. However, my guess is that gelled fuel may have led the fuel system to be starved for fuel which could have killed the HPFP.

I'm 99% sure that its related to the fuel system and since the entire fuel system is covered by the extended warranty, I expect it to be fully covered by warranty. I will update this thread when I know more.
 

Radman

Top Post Dawg
Joined
May 13, 2001
Location
Montreal
TDI
2014 Audi A6 TDI, 2014 Touareg TDI
I heard of several others having same issue this past week. Both were frozen fuel filters. Make sure the filter is changed regularly as it acts as a water separator
therefore any water in system will accumulate in the bottom part of filter. Older TDI's had a drain plug on the bottom of filter to evacuate the water.
 

KITEWAGON

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Location
Seacoast, NH
TDI
2014 Touareg Exec, 2014 JSW
Thanks for the reply! The fuel filter was changed at the 120k service. So it has about 6k miles on it. But I agree that one way or another this was a cold weather/gelled fuel related issue.

It did start up and drive onto the tow truck okay so that gives me hope that major damage was avoided. If it didn't have the extended emissions warranty I would have dug into it more and pulled the codes. But it just didn't seem worth the risk. With a free tow and (hopefully) warranty coverage it was easier to send it off.

I do hope that even if its gelled fuel that it is covered by warranty. I believe that the warranty says that CEL and fuel system issues are covered and this certainly threw a CEL and was fuel system related, but we shall see.
 

Mythdoc

Veteran Member
Joined
Jan 28, 2017
Location
Tennessee
TDI
2011 Touareg, 2015 Q5, 2015 Golf
I think you're fine. I gelled my Touareg once (also in NH, btw) and heard the plaintive whine of the fuel pump. Got it warmed again and all was fine.
 

KITEWAGON

Veteran Member
Joined
Jun 29, 2009
Location
Seacoast, NH
TDI
2014 Touareg Exec, 2014 JSW
Well, its just a case of gelled fuel folks. Nothing to see here. The lesson is use a good cold weather additive and use plenty of it when temps are going to be below zero. I stupidly tossed some Standyne into this tank of fuel when I had Optilube XPD sitting on a shelf. Thankfully after this weekend temperatures in New England should return to "normal cold" instead of "wicked cold" as we say around here.

In hindsight I also would have spent more time trying to get the car healthy myself. Thankfully Seacoast VW only charged us $70 including a bottle of fuel additive (will be curious to see what brand they used). Of course I'm sure that all they did was park it in a warm garage for 24 hours and low and behold it was fixed. Oh well, lesson learned and glad it wasn't anything expensive or complicated that would keep the car out of our hands for weeks on end.
 
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showdown 42

Veteran Member
Joined
Feb 16, 2012
Location
naples,FL
TDI
2016 TDI touareg
There should be a winter alert here for all TDI drivers to add something like PS white bottle at the beginning of winter and keep it up all winter. Don't be afraid to over dose if it will be well below Zero. It's so much nicer not to have to worry.
 
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